Related Programs: 
UW Highlights
Education

Study Says "Agricultural Revolution" May Not Have Been So Revolutionary For Human Population Growth

By • Feb 5, 2016

University of Wyoming students excavate a prehistoric rock shelter in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming during the summer of 2015.
Credit UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING

Around 12,000 years ago, hunter gatherers began to settle in one place and farm the land. It’s widely thought to be the first time the human population began to grow at a faster rate. However, a recent study published in the scientific journal PNAS and funded by the National Science Foundation is challenging that idea.

Harvard Astrophysicist Jibran Zahid was the head author of the paper. Co-authors Professor Robert Kelly and Erick Robinson from the University of Wyoming looked at radio carbon dates to determine population size of hunter gatherer communities in Wyoming and Colorado. Wyoming Public Radio’s Caroline Ballard sat down with the two archaeologists.

Tags: 
archaeology
University of Wyoming
History

Related Content

UW Archeologists Co-Author Study Challenging Common Knowledge On Population Growth

By • Jan 25, 2016
University of Wyoming

Two University of Wyoming archeologists are co-authors on a new paper in the scientific journal PNAS that challenges the traditional understanding of human population growth.

Human population has soared in the last 200 years or so because of the industrial revolution and advances in medicine. Before that, it was thought that the first significant change in human population growth happened around 12,000 years ago, because of the agricultural revolution.

What Kind Of Lizard Did You Find In Wyoming?

By • Jul 2, 2015
Ana M. Balcarcel

When you think of a Jesus lizard you probably think of the rainforest creature: green crested with big floppy feet zipping across the surface of water.

Now, a new skull fossil shows that a very close relative of that lizard lived in Wyoming 50 million years ago. Anatomy professor Jack Conrad from the New York Institute of Technology just released a paper on the discovery. 

In Sunrise Wyoming, Mining Goes Back 13,000 Years

By • Nov 10, 2015

Rare Mammoth Site Excavated In Douglas

By • Jun 27, 2014
Melodie Edwards

In 1986, a large mammoth rib bone was found jutting out of the bank of a creek a few miles from Douglas.  The state archaeologist, Dr. George Frison, did a hasty 4-day excavation at the time.  But a thorough excavation has never been done because the land owners weren’t interested in hosting an archaeology dig on their property.  That left archaeologists with a big question--was LaPrele Creek a mammoth kill site?  But recently the land sold and archaeologists have finally been allowed to dig.